By Alok Verma

With the end of 2008 there appears to be a genuine optimism that the year 2009 would be a witness to more cheers and less of threats, violence, fear, crises, clashes and conflicts. Optimism is what brings motivation for change. And, in all fairness we all must work towards making 2009 as the ‘year of optimism’. Unless we remain optimistic it is quite possible that the threats that are staring us so dangerously may again throw us into the terrain of pessimism.
We as a nation have just been a witness to the worst kind of terrorism, economic crisis, commodity crisis, petroleum crisis, stock market crisis and real estate crisis. We are not too sure when and how we would be coming out of it. But while probing the root cause a little too closely behind all those crises one does find only one symptom responsible for it—the indifferent people. Yawning unfair business practices, inequitable income and distribution of resources, denial of fair justice, rudimentary rights to live and insatiable hunger for greed have led to the ills that we are confronting with in contemporary times. The growing disdain of people towards those issues that cut across geographical boundaries, classes, castes and religion but are critical, significant and of concern for the humanity to survive unless is rein in early there is very little hope for much larger issues such as energy, water and environment.

Often, I read about drastic changes in weather patterns across continents that are causing rise in sea level, melting of polar icecaps and ever-increasing levels of all forms of pollution. A lot of thrust is being laid on conservation of environment as one of the major concerns around the globe. But what has jolted me out of my slumber is a recent article that someone has sent me as part of the chain mail. The article talks about the portent dangers of almost unstoppable generation of electronic or e-waste. And, one single reason that gollops tonnes of energy, water, emission of greenhouse gases and produces tonnes of electronic waste is the mindlessly growing but inevitably required information technology infrastructure across India.

The scale of the problem is so gigantic that it is spine-chilling if one comes across certain statistics. According to a report by hardware body Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT), e-waste from discarded computers, TVs and mobile phones is projected to grow to more than 800,000 tonnes by 2012 with a growth rate of 15 per cent in India. “If the situation is not controlled, we may see large land-fills of junk e-waste around our cities 10 years down the line,” says MAIT executive director Vinnie Mehta.

E-waste encompasses ever growing range of obsolete electronic devices such as computers, servers, main frames, monitors, TVs & display devices, telecommunication devices such as cellular phones & pagers, calculators, audio and video devices, printers, scanners, copiers and fax machines besides refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, and microwave ovens, e-waste also covers recording devices such as DVDs, CDs, floppies, tapes, printing cartridges, military electronic waste, automobile catalytic converters, electronic components such as chips, processors, mother boards, printed circuit boards, industrial electronics such as sensors, alarms, sirens, security devices, automobile electronic devices.
There is an estimate that the total obsolete computers originating from government offices, business houses, industries and household is of the order of 2 million every year. Manufacturers and assemblers in a single calendar year, estimated to produce around 1200 tonnes of electronic scrap. It should be noted that obsolence rate of personal computers (PC) is one in every two years. The consumers find it convenient to buy a new computer rather than upgrade the old one due to the changing configuration, technology and the attractive offers of the manufacturers.
Due to the lack of governmental legislations on e-waste, standards for disposal, proper mechanism for handling these toxic hi-tech products, mostly end up in landfills or partly recycled in a unhygienic conditions and partly thrown into waste streams. Computer waste is generated from the individual households; the government, public and private sectors; computer retailers; manufacturers; foreign embassies; secondary markets of old PCs. Of these, the biggest sources of PC scrap are foreign countries that export huge computer waste in the form of reusable components.
With extensively using computers, mobile phones and other electronic equipments and people dumping old devices for new ones, the amount of e-waste generated has been steadily increasing. At present, Bangalore alone generates about 8000 tonnes of computer waste annually and in the absence of proper disposal, they find their way to scrap dealers. According to Toxic Link, a Delhi-based non-governmental organization about 3.3 lakh tonnes of e-waste generated in 2007 was dumped into the rivers, land-fills and sewage drains. . “E-waste is going to be one the major problems facing the world after climate change and poverty,” says Nokia India managing director D Shiva Kumar. One can estimate the quantum of crisis when according to Mr Siva Kumar five lakh people walk in every month at Nokia stores around the country to buy new phones and of them thousands are junking their old phones. Worst is that these phones are not being recycled but getting piled up as e-waste. Imagine, almost a similar number of phones of other cell phone companies must also be getting junked in lieu of new phones.

Electronic waste or e-waste is one of the rapidly growing environmental problems of the world. In India, the electronic waste management assumes greater significance not only due to the generation of our own waste but also dumping of e-waste particularly computer waste from the developed countries. All of us who are using the internet or mobile as a medium of communication must understand the dangers of e-waste and use the year of 2009 to create mass awareness of its portent dangers. Let e-waste not become another threat to humanity as we already have many threats to deal with.

At many of the seminars and intellectual discussions it has been often found people discovering the root cause of most problems in India. And, political system has been at receiving end mostly for most problems in India because everything else is allegedly a result of that.

Not that, I don’t hate politicians but certainly I do not have a disregard for the political system. In my view, the problem of India is not so much the political system but the indifference of people for the political system. We have a great democracy and so its systems, where one can reach up to any heights irrespective of his caste, creed and social status.

But the most regrettable is the role of the so called Indian intelligentsia which is double-speak, corrupt, immoral and valueless. These are the people, who daringly manipulate the system by being dishonest, greedy and immoral for the petty gains through the ever-ready gullible political leaders and administration.

Political leaders and administration understand their value and vulnerability well. Therefore, they become emboldened in asking and sharing the booty as part of their share when the influential class of wealthy people use them for their illegitimate and ulterior gains.

After all the kind of unfair balance that we face in India between haves and have nots is only indicative of the fact poor becoming poor and rich becoming rich. The gap is so disgustingly visible that even a dumb dog of the rich family must be feeling embarrassed seeing poor children begging on the road while taking a ride in the car. Do you think it is the poor people or the underprivileged class or the less privileged class who are corrupt or immoral or manipulative...no it is all the influential class.

The moot point is how do you deal with this class. In my view it is extremely difficult unless mass of people who are actually honest come out and participate in many initiatives that would lend a powerful voice demanding what is good for masses than classes. There have been going such powerful initiatives undertaken by some conscientious people who silently made the government to bow down to their resolve.

There are Aruna Roy and Arvind Kejriwal, belonging to prestigious Indian Civil Service but chose to come out of it to fight for the Right to Information for Indian citizens. Their unsung contribution would be remembered in posterity for gifting common people such a powerful right after Gandhi’s ‘Swaraj’ that no one can now deny justice to any common man on male fide or wrong reasons. There are a number of IIT and IIM graduates, who are dedicating themselves into inventing technology tools for empowering people to use them for their betterment and rights.

One-man army by the name of Prof Anil Gupta, Professor, IIM, Ahmedabad has been tirelessly working with innovators from the rural background, who have invented small technologies to change theirs and also lives in the neighborhood. He is silently bringing change by working with such ordinary people and bringing them into mainstream.

There is someone in Nagpur, who has provided an online platform for connecting people with those needing blood. He does this noble work by spending money from his own pocket. Some similar initiatives are happening in the education domain too. Intelligent learning tools have been created. Well-educated professionals are dedicating their lives in changing the future of rural children by imparting them useful education.

In the name of increased educational opportunities India may have been producing graduates but how many of them are employable is any body’s guess. So, what we are creating nothing but a huge army unemployed graduates. Similarly, every third student in the country wants to become an engineer. Thousands of engineering colleges have mushroomed across the country and aspiring students with a dream to become an engineer have taken admission after spending huge sums.

After they start studying in these colleges what they discover to their utter shock is that there is no faculty to teach them. And, whosoever are teaching them are unqualified teachers and outdated ones. Parents feel cheated so as their wards but they have no choice but to remain there and silently suffer in the hope that someday it might change. Their hopes get shattered the most when they have to work like a shop floor supervisor at a salary equivalent to a technician even after procuring an engineering degree. So, what is driving this phenomenon where every parent wants their children to become engineers. Nothing but unrealistic hopes and greed.

The blame cannot be found entirely with parents alone. The very fundamental question arises who is granting the permission to set up such engineering colleges without even verifying whether they have the competence to run them. Just on the strength of their money power these greedy traders also trade in education and in turn what are they manufacturing - a frustrated lot of students. Therefore, there is no surprise when we read reports in newspapers that behind many of thefts and robberies are these engineering students.

This is just not the example of engineering students alone. Same is the story in many such other professional education set ups. With the sudden downturn in the aviation sector in India, hundred thousands of students suddenly have no job opportunities while they have spent huge sums money of their parents on admissions. The story doesn’t stop here. Even the hospitality students are going to meet the same fate. Similarly, there would be increased joblessness in the BPOs, Aviation and Hospitality. In a country when joblessness would get created to this extent it is likely lead to nothing but lawlessness of all kinds.

I don’t think the government or the resourceful people representing the industry and political parties are even bothered. We generally get excited by some unrealistic growth stories. The crude example of such a make-believe story is the growth in the aviation sector.

The one boom in the sector couldn’t find enough pilots to fly planes from within India. To meet the demand the country has had to import foreign pilots at huge costs. Infosys and Wipros have created an environment where engineering colleges indulged in manufacturing engineers like soaps without even bothering to devote time on standards. And such companies have thrown out a large number of such ‘manufactured engineers’ like garbage on the street when the going became tough for them in the current scenario. Who is to be blamed? I think ourselves ’society as a whole’. Isn’t it?